What makes Whitman such a (reputation of a) "pressure cooker?"

[Anonymous]

W schools (and lesser degree BCC) have high percentage of asian families which put education first. Yes, RMIB is incredibly hard driven. Far more so than any of the W-schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's the cumulative effect of trying to be the absolute best at everything. Not only to have 12 APs and perfect grades, but also to be concert master in the orchestra and found a nonprofit that pairs orphans with kittens.

The amount of wealth for external coaching/training/lessons means that it's not enough to just really love singing or playing the cello or playing soccer. Because everyone else is getting extensive private coaching, there's no room for a hobbyist, which means creates an arms race.

Are kids at Quince orchard/Poolesville/Gaithersburg high schools not interested in being the absolute best? Are they content with low effort, dodging violence, vaping, fights and theft in the hallways, joyously facing lives of mediocrity and low income earning and generational financial struggle? Because i’ll bet if they got to choose they would choose to excel and succeed!

A lot of the W graduates I know that happily opted out of the w school systems for their kids have mediocre hand to mouth existences as gig workers and assorted other careers and maybe their kids would have liked a chance to compete at a higher level.

Our kids are in the W cluster and we love seeing them surrounded by super smart kids who like to do well! It’s been joyous and healthy not agro and weird. Let’s not foist our issues with our own inadequacies onto our kids, let them surpass us!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Absentee parents. With the money to fix any problem.

Ooof i would say the opposite, highly involved and caring parents!! That’s been our experience in the wootton cluster .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absentee parents. With the money to fix any problem.

Ooof i would say the opposite, highly involved and caring parents!! That’s been our experience in the wootton cluster .

+1. Not sure what that PP was smoking

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:W schools (and lesser degree BCC) have high percentage of asian families which put education first. Yes, RMIB is incredibly hard driven. Far more so than any of the W-schools.

+1

[Anonymous]

OP this is about high school - you might really benefit from talking in person to some students. The kids are alright. The parents, expecting a system to produce kids that equal or exceed the parent successes, well, maybe not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP this is about high school - you might really benefit from talking in person to some students. The kids are alright. The parents, expecting a system to produce kids that equal or exceed the parent successes, well, maybe not.

Yeah but that's not happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:W schools (and lesser degree BCC) have high percentage of asian families which put education first. Yes, RMIB is incredibly hard driven. Far more so than any of the W-schools.

Disagree on Whitman. It's whiter than most of MoCo. Not that many Asians, relatively.

[Anonymous]

It’s strange that it’s such a pressure cooker and yet so few get into top tier schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s strange that it’s such a pressure cooker and yet so few get into top tier schools.

I guess they gotta put on more pressure!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's the cumulative effect of trying to be the absolute best at everything. Not only to have 12 APs and perfect grades, but also to be concert master in the orchestra and found a nonprofit that pairs orphans with kittens.

The amount of wealth for external coaching/training/lessons means that it's not enough to just really love singing or playing the cello or playing soccer. Because everyone else is getting extensive private coaching, there's no room for a hobbyist, which means creates an arms race.

Are kids at Quince orchard/Poolesville/Gaithersburg high schools not interested in being the absolute best? Are they content with low effort, dodging violence, vaping, fights and theft in the hallways, joyously facing lives of mediocrity and low income earning and generational financial struggle? Because i’ll bet if they got to choose they would choose to excel and succeed!

A lot of the W graduates I know that happily opted out of the w school systems for their kids have mediocre hand to mouth existences as gig workers and assorted other careers and maybe their kids would have liked a chance to compete at a higher level.

Our kids are in the W cluster and we love seeing them surrounded by super smart kids who like to do well! It’s been joyous and healthy not agro and weird. Let’s not foist our issues with our own inadequacies onto our kids, let them surpass us!!!

Let's not throw Poolesville in with Gaithersburg and QO. Lots of high achieving kids and had more National Merit Semifinalists than Whitman.

[Anonymous]

Not sure Whitman is the highest pressure cooker in the county. Seems to have ceded that to other W schools or RM. But there is a different vibe than BCC for sure. When ‘everyone’ is doing same thing, competing same way, same socio-economic circumstances, it can add more pressure than if that’s a portion of the community.

Also I wouldn’t think it’d be the worst in the non/AP classes but rather the AP classes and the general AP arms race where everyone overwhelmed by the cumulative amount of work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's the cumulative effect of trying to be the absolute best at everything. Not only to have 12 APs and perfect grades, but also to be concert master in the orchestra and found a nonprofit that pairs orphans with kittens.

The amount of wealth for external coaching/training/lessons means that it's not enough to just really love singing or playing the cello or playing soccer. Because everyone else is getting extensive private coaching, there's no room for a hobbyist, which means creates an arms race.

Are kids at Quince orchard/Poolesville/Gaithersburg high schools not interested in being the absolute best? Are they content with low effort, dodging violence, vaping, fights and theft in the hallways, joyously facing lives of mediocrity and low income earning and generational financial struggle? Because i’ll bet if they got to choose they would choose to excel and succeed!

A lot of the W graduates I know that happily opted out of the w school systems for their kids have mediocre hand to mouth existences as gig workers and assorted other careers and maybe their kids would have liked a chance to compete at a higher level.

Our kids are in the W cluster and we love seeing them surrounded by super smart kids who like to do well! It’s been joyous and healthy not agro and weird. Let’s not foist our issues with our own inadequacies onto our kids, let them surpass us!!!

There are kids at every school who strive to be their best. The difference is some schools are diverse and have lower-income students in proportion more similar to the county. This impacts their standardized test averages and reputations, but it's not to say you can't get an excellent education from any of them.

[Anonymous]

Pressure on teachers to cook the books with inflated grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think BCC belongs in the same category as the Ws anymore, honestly. Its FARMS rate is almost 20% now, and it is projected to surpass that in another 2 years. It's an affluent school yes, but not at the same level as the Ws. It's more like RM/Sherwood level of affluence now.

I’d say, at this point it is only a school in an affluent area, the student body is extremely different than the Ws.